March 29, 2010

Jackass Urban Meyer Apologizes to Reporter

Florida's Urban Meyer apologized to Orlando Sentinel reporter Jeremy Fowler over the weekend. That's a good first step, but Meyer took the chicken salad approach by doing it in private and not in public.

Meyer publicly threatened Fowler last week and, in fairness to Fowler, the Florida coach needs to apologize in front of the other reporters who watched the coach bully the reporter. Anything less is unacceptable. Gene Frenette of the Florida Times-Union shares this opinion.

Then there is the case of the spineless reporters stood up for Meyer, and Sentinel columnist Mike Bianchi writes that those members of the "media" also should tell Fowler they were wrong. I couldn't agree more.

Sometimes the littliest behaviors stay with you forever. Every time I see Urban Meyer, I'll think of the video of him confronting that reporter. To have read the reporter's story in it's entirety, can't help but make you think Urban Meyer is an absolute jerk, a road rager waiting to happen. This private off to the side apology does nothing to erase the impression I have of Urban Meyer. It seems to me that enough people saw the video and are aware of all this, that Meyer needs to hold a press conference, where he needs to be smiling and good natured about it all, and explain that everybody makes mistakes, and he simply overeacted, and he's really sorry about it, and hopes the reporter in question accepts his apology and that everyone can move on and work together like professionals. Anyway, absent something along those lines, Urban Meyer is still every bit the jerk he was in that video clip. His private apology to the reporter is a lame and selfish small-minded way to address this issue. He can do lot better than that.